Search

The dynamics and evolution of any galactic structure are strongly influenced by the properties of the orbits that constitute it. In this paper, we compare two orbit classification schemes, one by Laskar (NAFF) , and the other by Carpintero and Aguilar (CA), by applying both of them to orbits obtained by following individual particles in a numerical simulation of a barred galaxy. We find that, at least for our case and some provisos, the main frequencies calculated by the two methods are in good agreement: for $80\%$ of the orbits the difference between the results of the two methods is less than $5\%$ for all three main frequencies. However, it is difficult to evaluate the amount of regular or chaotic bar orbits in a given system. The fraction of regular orbits obtained by the NAFF method strongly depends on the critical frequency drift parameter, while in the CA method the number of fundamental frequencies strongly depends on the frequency difference parameter $L_{\rm r}$ and the maximum integer used for searching the linear independence of the fundamental frequencies. We also find that, for a given particle, in general the projection of its motion along the bar minor axis is more regular than the other two projections, while the projection along the intermediate axis is the least regular., 14 pages, 21 figures; Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Simultaneous observations of microlensing events from multiple locations allow for the breaking of degeneracies between the physical properties of the lensing system, specifically by exploring different regions of the lens plane and by directly measuring the "microlens parallax". We report the discovery of a 30-55$M_J$ brown dwarf orbiting a K dwarf in microlensing event OGLE-2015-BLG-1319. The system is located at a distance of $\sim$5 kpc toward the Galactic bulge. The event was observed by several ground-based groups as well as by $Spitzer$ and $Swift$, allowing the measurement of the physical properties. However, the event is still subject to an 8-fold degeneracy, in particular the well-known close-wide degeneracy, and thus the projected separation between the two lens components is either $\sim$0.25 AU or $\sim$45 AU. This is the first microlensing event observed by $Swift$, with the UVOT camera. We study the region of microlensing parameter space to which $Swift$ is sensitive, finding that while for this event $Swift$ could not measure the microlens parallax with respect to ground-based observations, it can be important for other events. Specifically, for detecting nearby brown dwarfs and free-floating planets in high magnification events., 28 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Submitted to ApJ

With the aim of exploring the fast evolutionary path from the blue cloud of star-forming galaxies to the red sequence of quiescent galaxies in the local universe, we select a local advanced merging infrared luminous and ultraluminous galaxy (adv-merger (U)LIRGs) sample and perform careful dust extinction corrections to investigate their positions in the SFR-$M_{\ast}$, u-r and NUV-r color-mass diagrams. The sample consists of 89 (U)LIRGs at the late merger stage, obtained from cross-correlating the IRAS Point Source Catalog Redshift Survey and 1 Jy ULIRGs samples with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7 database. Our results show that $74\%\pm 5\%$ of adv-merger (U)LIRGs are localized above the $1\, \sigma$ line of the local star-forming galaxy main sequence. We also find that all adv-merger (U)LIRGs are more massive than and as blue as the blue cloud galaxies after corrections of Galactic and internal dust extinctions, with $95\%\pm 2\%$ and $81\%\pm 4\%$ of them outside the blue cloud on the u-r and NUV-r color-mass diagrams, respectively. These results, combined with the short timescale for exhausting the molecular gas reservoir in adv-merger (U)LIRGs ($3\times 10^{7}$ to $3\times 10^{8}$ years), imply that the adv-merger (U)LIRGs are likely at the starting point of the fast evolutionary track previously proposed by several groups. While the number density of adv-merger (U)LIRGs is only $\sim 0.1\%$ of the blue cloud star-forming galaxies in the local universe, this evolutionary track may play a more important role at high redshift., Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

We introduce the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Emission-Line Lens Survey (BELLS) for GALaxy-Ly$\alpha$ EmitteR sYstems (BELLS GALLERY) Survey, which is a Hubble Space Telescope program to image a sample of galaxy-scale strong gravitational lens candidate systems with high-redshift Ly$\alpha$ emitters (LAEs) as the background sources. The goal of the BELLS GALLERY Survey is to illuminate dark substructures in galaxy-scale halos by exploiting the small-scale clumpiness of rest-frame far-UV emission in lensed LAEs, and to thereby constrain the slope and normalization of the substructure-mass function. In this paper, we describe in detail the spectroscopic strong-lens selection technique, which is based on methods adopted in the previous Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) Survey, BELLS, and SLACS for the Masses Survey. We present the BELLS GALLERY sample of the 21 highest-quality galaxy--LAE candidates selected from $\approx 1.4 \times 10^6$ galaxy spectra in the BOSS of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. These systems consist of massive galaxies at redshifts of approximately 0.5 strongly lensing LAEs at redshifts from 2--3. The compact nature of LAEs makes them an ideal probe of dark substructures, with a substructure-mass sensitivity that is unprecedented in other optical strong-lens samples. The magnification effect from lensing will also reveal the structure of LAEs below 100 pc scales, providing a detailed look at the sites of the most concentrated unobscured star formation in the universe. The source code used for candidate selection is available for download as a part of this release., Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in the ApJ (ApJ, 824, 86). Minor edits to match the ApJ published version

We present a combined analysis of the observations of the gravitational microlensing event OGLE-2015-BLG-0479 taken both from the ground and by the {\it Spitzer Space Telescope}. The light curves seen from the ground and from space exhibit a time offset of $\sim 13$ days between the caustic spikes, indicating that the relative lens-source positions seen from the two places are displaced by parallax effects. From modeling the light curves, we measure the space-based microlens parallax. Combined with the angular Einstein radius measured by analyzing the caustic crossings, we determine the mass and distance of the lens. We find that the lens is a binary composed of two G-type stars with masses $\sim 1.0\ M_\odot$ and $\sim 0.9\ M_\odot$ located at a distance $\sim 3$ kpc. In addition, we are able to constrain the complete orbital parameters of the lens thanks to the precise measurement of the microlens parallax derived from the joint analysis. In contrast to the binary event OGLE-2014-BLG-1050, which was also observed by {\it Spitzer}, we find that the interpretation of OGLE-2015-BLG-0479 does not suffer from the degeneracy between $(\pm,\pm)$ and $(\pm,\mp)$ solutions, confirming that the four-fold parallax degeneracy in single-lens events collapses into the two-fold degeneracy for the general case of binary-lens events. The location of the blend in the color-magnitude diagram is consistent with the lens properties, suggesting that the blend is the lens itself. The blend is bright enough for spectroscopy and thus this possibility can be checked from future follow-up observations., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures

The masses of stars, including stellar remnants, are almost exclusively known from binary systems. In this paper, we study the gravitational microlensing of faint background galaxies caused by isolated neutron stars (pulsars). We show that the resulting distortions in the surface brightness can be used to determine the masses of neutron stars. Because of their different evolutionary histories, isolated neutron stars might have different masses from those in binary systems, which can thus provide a unique insight into their equation of states under extreme physical conditions. Having searched the existing pulsar catalogues, we have found one promising pair, consisting of a nearby pulsar and a background galaxy. This method will become more practical for the next-generation optical and radio surveys and telescopes.

We use Schwarzschild's orbit-superposition technique to construct self-consistent models of the Galactic bar. Using $\chi^2$ minimisation, we find that the best-fit Galactic bar model has a pattern speed $\Omega_{\rm p}=60 \rm{km s^{-1} kpc^{-1}}$, disk mass $\rm{M_{\rm d}=1.0\times10^{11}M_{\odot}}$ and bar angle $\theta_{\rm bar}=20^{\circ}$ for an adopted bar mass $\rm{M_{\rm bar}=2\times10^{10}M_{\odot}}$. The model can reproduce not only the three-dimensional and projected density distributions but also velocity and velocity dispersion data from the BRAVA survey. We also predict the proper motions in the range $l=[-12^{\circ},12^{\circ}]$, $b=[-10^{\circ},10^{\circ}]$, which appear to be higher than observations in the longitudinal direction. The model is stable within a timescale of 0.5 Gyr, but appears to deviate from steady-state on longer timescales. Our model can be further tested by future observations such as those from GAIA.

The microlensing event OGLE-2008-BLG-510 is characterised by an evident asymmetric shape of the peak, promptly detected by the ARTEMiS system in real time. The skewness of the light curve appears to be compatible both with binary-lens and binary-source models, including the possibility that the lens system consists of an M dwarf orbited by a brown dwarf. The detection of this microlensing anomaly and our analysis demonstrates that: 1) automated real-time detection of weak microlensing anomalies with immediate feedback is feasible, efficient, and sensitive, 2) rather common weak features intrinsically come with ambiguities that are not easily resolved from photometric light curves, 3) a modelling approach that finds all features of parameter space rather than just the `favourite model' is required, and 4) the data quality is most crucial, where systematics can be confused with real features, in particular small higher-order effects such as orbital motion signatures. It moreover becomes apparent that events with weak signatures are a silver mine for statistical studies, although not easy to exploit. Clues about the apparent paucity of both brown-dwarf companions and binary-source microlensing events might hide here.

We study moderate gravitational lensing where a background galaxy is magnified substantially, but not multiply imaged, by an intervening galaxy. We focus on the case where both the lens and source are elliptical galaxies. The signatures of moderate lensing include isophotal distortions and systematic shifts in the fundamental plane and Kormendy relation, which can potentially be used to statistically determine the galaxy mass profiles. These effects are illustrated using Monte Carlo simulations of galaxy pairs where the foreground galaxy is modelled as a singular isothermal sphere model and observational parameters appropriate for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). The range in radius probed by moderate lensing will be larger than that by strong lensing, and is in the interesting regime where the density slope may be changing.

We identify a total of 120 early-type Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) at 0.1

We explore the dynamical signatures imprinted by baryons on dark matter haloes during the formation process using the OverWhelmingly Large Simulations (OWLS), a set of state-of-the-art high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We present a detailed study of the effects of the implemented feedback prescriptions on the orbits of dark matter particles, stellar particles and subhaloes, analysing runs with no feedback, with stellar feedback and with feedback from supermassive black holes. We focus on the central regions (0.25 r_{200}) of haloes with virial masses ~ 6 x 10^{13} (~ 7 x 10^{11}) Msun/h at z = 0(2). We also investigate how the orbital content (relative fractions of the different orbital types) of these haloes depends on several key parameters such as their mass, redshift and dynamical state. The results of spectral analyses of the orbital content of these simulations are compared, and the change in fraction of box, tube and irregular orbits is quantified. Box orbits are found to dominate the orbital structure of dark matter haloes in cosmological simulations. There is a strong anticorrelation between the fraction of box orbits and the central baryon fraction. While radiative cooling acts to reduce the fraction of box orbits, strong feedback implementations result in a similar orbital distribution to that of the dark matter only case. The orbital content described by the stellar particles is found to be remarkably similar to that drawn from the orbits of dark matter particles, suggesting that either they have forgotten their dynamical history, or that subhaloes bringing in stars are not biased significantly with respect to the main distribution. The orbital content of the subhaloes is in broad agreement with that seen in the outer regions of the particle distributions.

We present a spatial analysis of the soft X-ray and Hα emissions from the outflow of the starburst galaxy M82. We find that the two emissions are tightly correlated on various scales. The O VII triplet of M82, as resolved by X-ray grating observations of XMM-Newton, is dominated by the forbidden line, inconsistent with the thermal prediction. The O VII triplet also shows some spatial variations. We discuss three possible explanations for the observed O VII triplet, including the charge exchange at interfaces between the hot outflow and neutral cool gas, a collisional non-equilibrium-ionization recombining plasma, and resonance scattering (© 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

The flux-ratio anomalies observed in multiply-lensed quasar images are most plausibly explained as the result of perturbing structures superposed on the underlying smooth matter distribution of the primary lens. The cold dark matter cosmological model predicts that a large number of substructures should survive inside larger halos but, surprisingly, this population alone has been shown to be insufficient to explain the observed distribution of the flux ratios of quasar's multiple images. Other halos (and their own subhalos) projected along the line of sight to the primary lens have been considered as additional source of perturbation. In this work, we use ray tracing through the Millennium II simulation to investigate the importance of projection effects due to halos and subhalos of mass m>1E8 Msun/h and extend our analysis to lower masses, m>1E6 Msun/h, using Monte-Carlo halo distributions. We find that the magnitude of the violation depends strongly on the density profile and concentration of the intervening halos, but clustering plays only a minor role. For a typical lensing geometry (lens at redshift 0.6 and source at redshift 2), background haloes (behind the main lens) are more likely to cause a violation than foreground halos. We conclude that line-of-sight structures can be as important as intrinsic substructures in causing flux-ratio anomalies. The combined effect of perturbing structures within the lens and along the line of sight in the LCDM universe results in a cusp-violation probability of 20-30%. This alleviates the discrepancy between models and current data, but a larger observational sample is required for a stronger test of the theory.

We take a sample of 24 elliptical and lenticular galaxies previously analysed by the SAURON project using three-integral dynamical models created with Schwarzschild's method, and re-analyse them using the made-to-measure (M2M) method of dynamical modelling. We obtain good agreement between the two methods in determining the dynamical mass-to-light (M/L) ratios for the galaxies with over 80% of ratios differing by < 10% and over 95% differing by < 20%. We show that (M/L)_M2M is approximately equal to (M/L)_Sch. For the global velocity dispersion anisotropy parameter delta, we find similar values but with fewer of the made-to-measure models tangentially anisotropic by comparison with their SAURON Schwarzschild counterparts. Our investigation is the largest comparative application of the made-to-measure method to date.

We constrain properties of cluster haloes by performing likelihood analysis using lensing shear and flexion data. We test our analysis using two mock cluster haloes: an isothermal ellipsoid (SIE) model and a more realistic elliptical Navarro-Frenk-White (eNFW) model. For both haloes, we find that flexion is more sensitive to the halo ellipticity than shear. The introduction of flexion information significantly improves the constraints on halo ellipticity, orientation and mass. We also point out that there is a degeneracy between the mass and the ellipticity of SIE models in the lensing signal.

Properties of hot gas outflows from galaxies are generally measured from associated X-ray line emission assuming that it represents atomic transitions in thermally excited hot gas. X-ray line emission, however, can also arise from the charge exchange between highly ionised ions and neutral species. The K\alpha\ triplet of He-like ions can be used as a powerful diagnostic, because the charge exchange X-ray emission (CXE) favours the inter-combination and forbidden lines, while the thermal emission favours the resonance line. We analyse the OVII triplet of a sample of nine nearby star-forming galaxies observed by the XMM-Newton reflection grating spectrometers. For most galaxies, the forbidden lines are comparable to or stronger than the resonance lines, which is in contrast to the thermal prediction. For NGC 253, M51, M83, M61, NGC 4631, and the Antennae galaxy, the observed line ratios are consistent with the ratio of the CXE; for M94 and NGC 2903, the observed ratios indicate multiple origins; for M82, different regions show different line ratios, also indicating multiple origins. We discuss other possible mechanisms that can produce a relatively strong forbidden line, such as a collisional non-equilibrium-ionization recombining/ionizing plasma, which are not favoured. These results suggest that the CXE may be a common process and contribute a significant fraction of the soft X-ray line emission for galaxies with massive star formation.

Most galaxies host central supermassive black holes. As two galaxies merge, the black holes also merge. The final single black hole may suffer a kick due to asymmetric gravitational radiation and may not be at the centre of the galaxy; off-centre black holes may also be produced by other means such as sustained acceleration due to asymmetric jet power. We model the main galaxy as a singular isothermal sphere and the black hole as an off-centre point lens, and study the critical curves and caustics using complex notation. We identify the critical parameters that govern the transitions in the topology of critical curves, caustics and pseudo-caustics, and find the number of images can be two, three, four and five. We show examples of image configurations, including cases where three highly de-magnified images are found close to the centre. The perturbation on the image magnification due to the black hole scales linearly with its mass in the off-centre case, and quadratically when the black hole is at the centre. Such images are difficult to observe unless high-contrast and high-resolution imaging facilities (e.g., the Square Kilometer Array in the radio) become available.

Recent observations indicate that many if not all galaxies host massive central black holes (BHs). In this paper we explore the influence of supermassive binary black holes (SMBBHs) on their actions as gravitational lenses. When lenses are modelled as singular isothermal ellipsoids, binary black holes change the critical curves and caustics differently as a function of distance. Each black hole can in principle create at least one additional image, which, if observed, provides evidence of black holes. By studying how SMBBHs affect the cumulative distribution of magnification for images created by black holes, we find that the cross section for at least one such additional image to have a magnification larger than $10^{-5}$ is comparable to the cross section for producing multiple-images in singular isothermal lenses. Such additional images may be detectable with high-resolution and large dynamic range maps of multiply-imaged systems from future facilities, such as the SKA. The probability of detecting at least one image (two images) with magnification above $10^{-3}$ is $\sim 0.2 \fBH$ ($\sim 0.05 \fBH$) in a multiply-imaged lens system, where $\fBH$ is the fraction of galaxies housing binary black holes. We also study the effects of SMBBHs on the core images when galaxies have shallower central density profiles (modelled as non-singular isothermal ellipsoids). We find that the cross section of the usually faint core images is further suppressed by SMBBHs. Thus their presence should also be taken into account when one constrains the core radius from the lack of central images in gravitational lenses.

Microlensing is most sensitive to binary lenses with relatively large orbital separations, and as such, typical binary microlensing events show little or no orbital motion during the event. However, despite the strength of binary microlensing features falling off rapidly as the lens separation decreases, we show that it is possible to detect repeating features in the lightcurve of binary microlenses that complete several orbits during the microlensing event. We investigate the lightcurve features of such Rapidly Rotating Lens (RRL) events. We derive analytical limits on the range of parameters where these effects are detectable, and confirm these numerically. Using a population synthesis Galactic model we estimate the RRL event rate for a ground-based and space-based microlensing survey to be 0.32fb and 7.8fb events per year respectively, assuming year-round monitoring and where fb is the binary fraction. We detail how RRL event parameters can be quickly estimated from their lightcurves, and suggest a method to model RRL events using timing measurements of lightcurve features. Modelling RRL lightcurves will yield the lens orbital period and possibly measurements of all orbital elements including the inclination and eccentricity. Measurement of the period from the lightcurve allows a mass-distance relation to be defined, which when combined with a measurement of microlens parallax or finite source effects, can yield a mass measurement to a two-fold degeneracy. With sub-percent accuracy photometry it is possible to detect planetary companions, but the likelihood of this is very small.

The cold dark matter theory predicts triaxial dark matter haloes. The radial distribution of halo ellipticity depends on baryonic processes and the nature of dark matter particles (collisionless or collisional). Here we show that we can use lensing flexion ratios to measure the halo ellipticity as a function of radius. We introduce a weight function and study the relationship between the first and second order statistics of flexion ratios, both of which can be used to reduce the bias in the estimate of ellipticity. we perform numerical tests for our method, and demonstrate that it can reduce the bias and determine the halo ellipticity as a function of radius. We also point out that the minimum mean flexion ratio can be used to trace the centres of galaxy clusters.

The observed number counts of high-redshift galaxy candidates have been used to build up a statistical description of star-forming activity at redshift z >~ 7, when galaxies reionized the Universe. Standard models predict that a high incidence of gravitational lensing will probably distort measurements of flux and number of these earliest galaxies. The raw probability of this happening has been estimated to be ~ 0.5 percent, but can be larger owing to observational biases. Here we report that gravitational lensing is likely to dominate the observed properties of galaxies with redshifts of z >~ 12, when the instrumental limiting magnitude is expected to be brighter than the characteristic magnitude of the galaxy sample. The number counts could be modified by an order of magnitude, with most galaxies being part of multiply imaged systems, located less than 1 arcsec from brighter foreground galaxies at z ~ 2. This lens-induced association of high-redshift and foreground galaxies has perhaps already been observed among a sample of galaxy candidates identified at z ~ 10.6. Future surveys will need to be designed to account for a significant gravitational lensing bias in high-redshift galaxy samples., Nature, Jan. 13, 2011 issue (in press)

A standard binary microlensing event lightcurve allows just two parameters of the lensing system to be measured: the mass ratio of the companion to its host, and the projected separation of the components in units of the Einstein radius. However, other exotic effects can provide more information about the lensing system. Orbital motion in the lens is one such effect, which if detected, can be used to constrain the physical properties of the lens. To determine the fraction of binary lens lightcurves affected by orbital motion (the detection efficiency) we simulate lightcurves of orbiting binary star and star-planet (planetary) lenses and simulate the continuous, high-cadence photometric monitoring that will be conducted by the next generation of microlensing surveys that are beginning to enter operation. The effect of orbital motion is measured by fitting simulated lightcurve data with standard static binary microlensing models; lightcurves that are poorly fit by these models are considered to be detections of orbital motion. We correct for systematic false positive detections by also fitting the lightcurves of static binary lenses. For a continuous monitoring survey without intensive follow-up of high magnification events, we find the orbital motion detection efficiency for planetary events with caustic crossings to be 0.061+-0.010, consistent with observational results, and 0.0130+-0.0055 for events without caustic crossings (smooth events). Similarly for stellar binaries, the orbital motion detection efficiency is 0.098+-0.011 for events with caustic crossings and is 0.048+-0.006 for smooth events. These result in combined (caustic crossing and smooth) orbital motion detection efficiencies of 0.029+-0.005 for planetary lenses and 0.070+-0.006 for stellar binary lenses. We also investigate how various microlensing parameters affect the orbital motion detectability. [Abridged]

K2 Campaign 9 (K2C9) was the first space-based microlensing parallax survey capable of measuring microlensing parallaxes of free-floating planet candidate microlensing events. Simultaneous to K2C9 observations we conducted the K2C9 Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Multi-Color Microlensing Survey (K2C9-CFHT MCMS) in order to measure the colors of microlensing source stars to improve the accuracy of K2C9's parallax measurements. We describe the difference imaging photometry analysis of the K2C9-CFHT MCMS observations, and present the project's first data release. This includes instrumental difference flux lightcurves of 217 microlensing events identified by other microlensing surveys, reference image photometry calibrated to PanSTARRS data release 1 photometry, and tools to convert between instrumental and calibrated flux scales. We derive accurate analytic transformations between the PanSTARRS bandpasses and the Kepler bandpass, as well as angular diameter-color relations in the PanSTARRS bandpasses. To demonstrate the use of our data set, we analyze ground-based and K2 data of a short timescale microlensing event, OGLE-2016-BLG-0795. We find the event has a timescale $t_{\rm E}=4.5 \pm 0.1$~days and microlens parallax $\pi_{\rm E}=0.12 \pm 0.03$ or $0.97 \pm 0.04$, subject to the standard satellite parallax degeneracy. We argue that the smaller value of the parallax is more likely, which implies that the lens is likely a stellar-mass object in the Galactic bulge as opposed to a super-Jupiter mass object in the Galactic disk., Comment: Submitted to PASP

We propose a new strategy of finding strongly-lensed supernovae (SNe) by monitoring known galaxy-scale strong-lens systems. Strongly lensed SNe are potentially powerful tools for the study of cosmology, galaxy evolution, and stellar populations, but they are extremely rare. By targeting known strongly lensed starforming galaxies, our strategy significantly boosts the detection efficiency for lensed SNe compared to a blind search. As a reference sample, we compile the 128 galaxy-galaxy strong-lens systems from the Sloan Lens ACS Survey (SLACS), the SLACS for the Masses Survey, and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Emission-Line Lens Survey. Within this sample, we estimate the rates of strongly-lensed Type Ia SN (SNIa) and core-collapse SN (CCSN) to be $1.23 \pm 0.12$ and $10.4 \pm 1.1$ events per year, respectively. The lensed SN images are expected to be widely separated with a median separation of 2 arcsec. Assuming a conservative fiducial lensing magnification factor of 5 for the most highly magnified SN image, we forecast that a monitoring program with a single-visit depth of 24.7 mag (5$\sigma$ point source, $r$ band) and a cadence of 5 days can detect 0.49 strongly-lensed SNIa event and 2.1 strongly-lensed CCSN events per year within this sample. Our proposed targeted-search strategy is particularly useful for prompt and efficient identifications and follow-up observations of strongly-lensed SN candidates. It also allows telescopes with small field of views and limited time to efficiently discover strongly-lensed SNe with a pencil-beam scanning strategy., Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, ApJ in press

By inverting the distributions of galaxies' apparent ellipticities and misalignment angles (measured around the projected half-light radius $R_{\rm e}$) between their photometric and kinematic axes, we study the intrinsic shape distribution of 189 slow rotator early-type galaxies with stellar masses $2\times 10^{11} M_{\odot}, Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJL, 10 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

Lensing flux-ratio anomalies have been frequently observed and taken as evidence for the presence of abundant dark matter substructures in lensing galaxies, as predicted by the cold dark matter (CDM) model of cosmogony. In previous work, we examined the cusp-caustic relations of the multiple images of background quasars lensed by galaxy-scale dark matter haloes, using a suite of high-resolution N-body simulations (the Aquarius simulations). In this work, we extend our previous calculations to incorporate both the baryonic and diffuse dark components in lensing haloes. We include in each lensing simulation: (1) a satellite galaxy population derived from a semi-analytic model applied to the Aquarius haloes, (2) an empirical Milky-Way globular cluster population and (3) satellite streams (diffuse dark component) identified in the simulations. Accounting for these extra components, we confirm our earlier conclusion that the abundance of intrinsic substructures (dark or bright, bound or diffuse) is not sufficient to explain the observed frequency of cusp-caustic violations in the CLASS survey. We conclude that the observed effect could be the result of the small number statistics of CLASS, or intergalactic haloes along the line of sight acting as additional sources of lensing flux anomalies. Another possibility is that this discrepancy signals a failure of the CDM model.

We study 379 central and 159 satellite early-type galaxies with two-dimensional kinematics from the integral-field survey Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) to determine how their angular momentum content depends on stellar and halo mass. Using the Yang et. al. (2007) group catalog, we identify central and satellite galaxies in groups with halo masses in the range 10^12.5 h^-1 M_sun < M_200b < 10^15 h^-1 M_sun. As in previous work, we see a sharp dependence on stellar mass, in the sense that ~ 70% of galaxies with stellar mass M_* > 10^11 h^-2 M_sun tend to have very little rotation, while nearly all galaxies at lower mass show some net rotation. The ~ 30% of high-mass galaxies that have significant rotation do not stand out in other galaxy properties except for a higher incidence of ionized gas emission. Our data are consistent with recent simulation results suggesting that major merging and gas accretion have more impact on the rotational support of lower-mass galaxies. When carefully matching the stellar mass distributions, we find no residual differences in angular momentum content between satellite and central galaxies at the 20\% level. Similarly, at fixed mass, galaxies have consistent rotation properties across a wide range of halo mass. However, we find that errors in classification of centrals and satellites with group finders systematically lowers differences between satellite and central galaxies at a level that is comparable to current measurement uncertainties. To improve constraints, the impact of group finding methods will have to be forward modeled via mock catalogs., 21 pages, 9 figures, accepted version

Context. The ability to automatically select scientifically-important transient events from an alert stream of many such events, and to conduct follow-up observations in response, will become increasingly important in astronomy. With wide-angle time domain surveys pushing to fainter limiting magnitudes, the capability to follow-up on transient alerts far exceeds our follow-up telescope resources, and effective target prioritization becomes essential. The RoboNet-II microlensing program is a pathfinder project which has developed an automated target selection process (RoboTAP) for gravitational microlensing events which are observed in real-time using the Las Cumbres Observatory telescope network. Aims. Follow-up telescopes typically have a much smaller field-of-view compared to surveys, therefore the most promising microlens- ing events must be automatically selected at any given time from an annual sample exceeding 2000 events. The main challenge is to select between events with a high planet detection sensitivity, aiming at the detection of many planets and characterizing planetary anomalies. Methods. Our target selection algorithm is a hybrid system based on estimates of the planet detection zones around a microlens. It follows automatic anomaly alerts and respects the expected survey coverage of specific events. Results. We introduce the RoboTAP algorithm, whose purpose is to select and prioritize microlensing events with high sensitivity to planetary companions. In this work, we determine the planet sensitivity of the RoboNet follow-up program and provide a working example of how a broker can be designed for a real-life transient science program conducting follow-up observations in response to alerts, exploring the issues that will confront similar programs being developed for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and other time domain surveys., Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures

The incidence of sub-galactic level substructures is an important quantity, as it is a generic prediction of high-resolution Cold Dark Matter (CDM) models which is susceptible to observational test. Confrontation of theory with observations is currently in an uncertain state. In particular, gravitational lens systems appear to show evidence for flux ratio anomalies, which are expected from CDM substructures although not necessarily in the same range of radius as observed. However, the current small samples of lenses suggest that the lens galaxies in these systems are unusually often accompanied by luminous galaxies. Here we investigate a large sample of unlensed elliptical galaxies from the COSMOS survey, and determine the fraction of objects with satellites, in excess of background counts, as a function of satellite brightness and separation from the primary object. We find that the incidence of luminous satellites within 20 kpc is typically a few tenths of one percent for satellites of a few tenths of the primary flux, comparable to what is observed for the wider but shallower SDSS survey. Although the environments of lenses in the SLACS survey are compatible with this observation, the CLASS radio survey lenses are significantly in excess of this.

We use galaxy catalogues constructed by combining high-resolution N-body simulations with semi-analytic models of galaxy formation to study the properties of Long Gamma-Ray Burst (LGRB) host galaxies. We assume that LGRBs originate from the death of massive young stars and analyse how results are affected by different metallicity constraints on the progenitor stars. As expected, the host sample with no metallicity restriction on the progenitor stars provides a perfect tracer of the cosmic star formation history. When LGRBs are required to be generated by low-metallicity stars, they trace a decreasing fraction of the cosmic star formation rate at lower redshift, as a consequence of the global increase in metallicity. We study the properties of host galaxies up to high redshift (~9), finding that they typically have low-metallicity (Z, The paper contains 14 figures and 2 tables. Accepted MNRAS

The detection of fast quasi-periodic variability from accreting black holes and neutron stars has been used to constrain their masses, radii, and spins. If the observed oscillations are linear modes in the accretion disks, then bounds can be placed on the properties of the central objects by assuming that these modes are locally sub-Keplerian. If, on the other hand, the observed oscillations correspond to non-linear resonances between disk modes, then the properties of the central objects can be measured by assuming that the resonant modes are excited at the same radial annulus in the disk. In this paper, we use numerical simulations of vertically integrated, axisymmetric hydrodynamic accretion disks to provide examples of situations in which the assumptions implicit in both methods are not satisfied. We then discuss our results for the robustness of the mass and spin measurements of compact objects from variability studies., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, submitted to ApJ

We study the clustering properties of barred galaxies using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We compute projected redshift-space two-point cross-correlation functions w_p(r_p) for a sample of nearly 1000 galaxies for which we have performed detailed structural decompositions using the methods described in Gadotti (2009). The sample includes 286 barred galaxies. The clustering of barred and unbarred galaxies of similar stellar mass is indistinguishable over all the scales probed (~20kpc - 30Mpc). This result also holds even if the sample is restricted to bars with bluer g-i colours (and hence younger ages). Our result also does not change if we split our sample of barred galaxies according to bar-to-total luminosity ratio, bar boxyness, effective surface brightness, length, or the shape of the surface density profile within the bar. There is a hint that red, elliptical bars are more strongly clustered than red and less elliptical bars, on scales >~ 1 Mpc, although the statistical significance is not high. We conclude that there is no significant evidence that bars are a product of mergers or interactions. We tentatively interpret the stronger clustering of the more elliptical bars as evidence that they are located in older galaxies, which reside in more massive haloes., 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS, a new section is added to examine the dependence on local density

Microlensing events are usually selected among single-peaked non-repeating light curves in order to avoid confusion with variable stars. However, a microlensing event may exhibit a second microlensing brightening episode when the source or/and the lens is a binary system. A careful analysis of these repeating events provides an independent way to study the statistics of wide binary stars and to detect extrasolar planets. Previous theoretical studies predicted that 0.5 - 2 % of events should repeat due to wide binary lenses. We present a systematic search for such events in about 4000 light curves of microlensing candidates detected by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) towards the Galactic Bulge from 1992 to 2007. The search reveals a total of 19 repeating candidates, with 6 clearly due to a wide binary lens. As a by-product we find that 64 events (~2% of the total OGLE-III sample) have been miss-classified as microlensing; these miss-classified events are mostly nova or other types of eruptive stars. The number and importance of repeating events will increase considerably when the next-generation wide-field microlensing experiments become fully operational in the future., Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures (+ appendix A) and 3 tables

Based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR6 (SDSS) and Millennium Simulation (MS) we investigate the alignment between galaxies and large-scale structure. For this purpose we develop two new statistical tools, namely the alignment correlation function and the cos(2theta)-statistic. The former is a two-dimensional extension of the traditional two-point correlation function and the latter is related to the ellipticity correlation function used for cosmic shear measurements. Both are based on the cross correlation between a sample of galaxies with orientations and a reference sample which represents the large-scale structure. Applied to the SDSS galaxy catalog the alignment correlation function reveals an overabundance of reference galaxies along the major axes of red, luminous (L > L*) galaxies out to projected separations of 60 Mpc/h. No alignment signal is detected for blue galaxies. The cos(2\theta)-statistic yields very similar results. Starting from a MS semi-analytic galaxy catalog we assign an orientation to each red, luminous and central galaxy, based on the central region of the host halo. Alternatively, we use the orientation of the host halo itself. We find a mean projected misalignment between a halo and its central region of ~25 deg. Agreement with the SDSS results is good if the central orientations are used. Using the halo orientations overestimates the observed alignment by more than a factor of 2. The large volume of the MS allows to generate two-dimensional maps of the alignment correlation function which show the reference galaxy distribution to be flattened parallel to the orientations of red luminous galaxies with axis ratios of ~0.5 and ~0.75 for halo and central orientations,respectively. These ratios are almost independent of scale out to 60 Mpc/h., Comment: minor changes to match the accepted version; RAA Vol 9, No 1 (2009) 41-58

We analyse mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopic properties for 19 ultra-luminous infrared quasars (IR QSOs) in the local universe based on the spectra from the Infrared Spectrograph on board the Spitzer Space Telescope. The MIR properties of IR QSOs are compared with those of optically-selected Palomar-Green QSOs (PG QSOs) and ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs). The average MIR spectral features from ~ 5 to 30um, including the spectral slopes, 6.2um PAH emission strengths and [NeII] 12.81um luminosities of IR QSOs, differ from those of PG QSOs. In contrast, IR QSOs and ULIRGs have comparable PAH and [NeII] luminosities. These results are consistent with IR QSOs being at a transitional stage from ULIRGs to classical QSOs. We also find that the colour index alpha(30, 15) is a good indicator of the relative contribution of starbursts to AGNs for all QSOs. Correlations between the [NeII] 12.81um and PAH 6.2um luminosities and those between the [NeII], PAH with 60um luminosities for ULIRGs and IR QSOs indicate that both [NeII] and PAH luminosities are approximate star formation rate indicators for IR QSOs and starburst-dominated galaxies; the scatters are, however, quite large (~ 0.7 to 0.8 dex). Finally the correlation between the EW(PAH 6.2um) and outflow velocities suggests that star formation activities are suppressed by feedback from AGNs and/or supernovae., 19 pages, 8 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We investigate the photometric properties of the early type Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) using a carefully selected sample of 85 BCGs from the C4 cluster catalogue with redshift less than 0.1. We perform accurate background subtractions, and surface photometry for these BCGs to 25 $\magsec$ in the Sloan $r$-band. By quantitatively analysing the gradient of the Petrosian profiles of BCGs, we find that a large fraction of BCGs have extended stellar envelopes in their outskirts; more luminous BCGs tend to have more extended stellar halos that are likely connected with mergers. A comparison sample of elliptical galaxies was chosen with similar apparent magnitude and redshift ranges, for which the same photometric analysis procedure is applied. We find that BCGs have steeper size-luminosity ($R \propto L^\alpha$) and Faber-Jackson ($L \propto \sigma^\beta$) relations than the bulk of early type galaxies. Furthermore, the power-law indices ($\alpha$ and $\beta$) in these relations increase as the isophotal limits become deeper. For isophotal limits from 22 to 25 $\magsec$, BCGs are usually larger than the bulk of early type galaxies, and a large fraction ($\sim 49%$) of BCGs have disky isophotal shapes. The differences in the scaling relations are consistent with a scenario where the dynamical structure and formation route of BCGs may be different from the bulk of early type galaxies, in particular dry (dissipationless) mergers may play a more important role in their formation; we highlight several possible dry merger candidates in our sample.

We present a new joint analysis of pulsar dispersion measures and diffuse H-alpha emission in the Milky Way, which we use to derive the density, pressure and filling factor of the thick disk component of the warm ionised medium (WIM) as a function of height above the Galactic disk. By excluding sightlines at low Galactic latitude that are contaminated by HII regions and spiral arms, we find that the exponential scale-height of free electrons in the diffuse WIM is 1830 (+120, -250) pc, a factor of two larger than has been derived in previous studies. The corresponding inconsistent scale heights for dispersion measure and emission measure imply that the vertical profiles of mass and pressure in the WIM are decoupled, and that the filling factor of WIM clouds is a geometric response to the competing environmental influences of thermal and non-thermal processes. Extrapolating the properties of the thick-disk WIM to mid-plane, we infer a volume-averaged electron density 0.014 +- 0.001 cm^-3, produced by clouds of typical electron density 0.34 +- 0.06 cm^-3 with a volume filling factor 0.04 +- 0.01. As one moves off the plane, the filling factor increases to a maximum of ~30% at a height of approximately 1-1.5 kpc, before then declining to accommodate the increasing presence of hot, coronal gas. Since models for the WIM with a ~1 kpc scale-height have been widely used to estimate distances to radio pulsars, our revised parameters suggest that the distances to many high-latitude pulsars have been substantially underestimated., 20 pages, including 5 PS figures (4 in color). Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, in press

Microlensing light curves due to single stars are symmetric and typically last for a month. So far about 4000 microlensing events have been discovered in real-time, the vast majority toward the Galactic centre. The presence of planets around the primary lenses induces deviations in the usual light curve which lasts from hours (for an Earth-mass [M⊕] planet) to days (for a Jupiter-mass [Mj] planet). Currently the survey teams, OGLE and MOA, discover and announce microlensing events in real-time, and follow-up teams (together with the survey teams) monitor selected events intensively (usually with high magnification) in order to identify anomalies caused by planets. So far four extrasolar planets have been discovered using the microlensing technique, with half a dozen new planet candidates identified in 2007 (yet to be published). Future possibilities include a network of wide-field 2m-class telescopes from the ground (which can combine survey and follow-up in the same setup) and a 1m-class survey telescope from space.

Gravitational microlensing surveys target very dense stellar fields in the local group. As a consequence the microlensed source stars are often blended with nearby unresolved stars. The presence of `blending' is a cause of major uncertainty when determining the lensing properties of events towards the Galactic centre. After demonstrating empirical cases of blending we utilize Monte Carlo simulations to probe the effects of blending. We generate artificial microlensing events using an HST luminosity function convolved to typical ground-based seeing, adopting a range of values for the stellar density and seeing. We find that a significant fraction of bright events are blended, contrary to the oft-quoted assumption that bright events should be free from blending. We probe the effect that this erroneous assumption has on both the observed event timescale distribution and the optical depth, using realistic detection criteria relevent to the different surveys. Importantly, under this assumption the latter quantity appears to be reasonably unaffected across our adopted values for seeing and density. The timescale distribution is however biased towards smaller values, even for the least dense fields. The dominant source of blending is from lensing of faint source stars, rather than lensing of bright source stars blended with nearby fainter stars. We also explore other issues, such as the centroid motion of blended events and the phenomena of `negative' blending. Furthermore, we breifly note that blending can affect the determination of the centre of the red clump giant region from an observed luminosity function. This has implications for a variety of studies, e.g. mapping extinction towards the bulge and attempts to constrain the parameters of the Galactic bar through red clump giant number counts. (Abridged), 18 pages, 10 figures. MNRAS (in press)

Red clump giants in the Galactic bulge are approximate standard candles and hence they can be used as distance indicators. We compute the proper motion dispersions of RCG stars in the Galactic bulge using the proper motion catalogue from the second phase of the Optical Gravitational Microlensing Experiment (OGLE-II, Sumi et al. 2004) for 45 fields. The proper motion dispersions are measured to a few per cent accuracy due to the large number of stars in the fields. The observational sample is comprised of 577736 stars. These observed data are compared to a state-of-the-art particle simulation of the Galactic bulge region. The predictions are in rough agreement with observations, but appear to be too anisotropic in the velocity ellipsoid. We note that there is significant field-to-field variation in the observed proper motion dispersions. This could either be a real feature, or due to some unknown systematic effect., Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Discrepancies between the observed and model-predicted radio flux ratios are seen in a number of quadruply-lensed quasars. The most favored interpretation of these anomalies is that CDM substructures present in lensing galaxies perturb the lens potentials and alter image magnifications and thus flux ratios. So far no consensus has emerged regarding whether or not the predicted CDM substructure abundance fully accounts for the lensing flux anomaly observations. Accurate modeling relies on a realistic lens sample in terms of both the lens environment and internal structures and substructures. In this paper we construct samples of generalised and specific lens potentials, to which we add (rescaled) subhalo populations from the galaxy-scale Aquarius and the cluster-scale Phoenix simulation suites. We further investigate the lensing effects from subhalos of masses several orders of magnitude below the simulation resolution limit. The resulting flux ratio distributions are compared to the currently best available sample of radio lenses. The observed anomalies in B0128+437, B0712+472 and B1555+375 are more likely to be caused by propagation effects or oversimplified lens modeling, signs of which are already seen in the data. Among the quadruple systems that have closely located image triplets/pairs, the anomalous flux ratios of MG0414+0534 can be reproduced by adding CDM subhalos to its macroscopic lens potential, with a probability of 5%-20%; for B0712+472, B1422+231, B1555+375 and B2045+265, these probabilities are only of a few percent. We hence find that CDM substructures are unlikely to be the whole reason for radio flux anomalies. We discuss other possible effects that might also be at work., Comment: 21 pages, 3 tables, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS. This paper supersedes our previous preprint arXiv:1307.4220. The methodology has been significantly improved and this has reached quantitatively different results

We present an analysis of the diffuse soft X-ray emission from the nuclear region of M51 combining both XMM-Newton RGS and Chandra data. Most of the RGS spectrum of M51 can be fitted with a thermal model with a temperature of $\sim0.5$ keV except for the OVII triplet, which is forbidden-line dominated. The Fe L-shell lines peak around the southern cloud, where the OVIII and NVII Lya lines also peak. In contrast, the peak of the OVII forbidden line is about 10$"$ offset from that of the other lines, indicating that it is from a spatially distinct component. The spatial distribution of the OVII triplet mapped by the Chandra data shows that most of the OVII triplet flux is located at faint regions near edges, instead of the southern cloud where other lines peak. This distribution of the OVII triplet is inconsistent with the photoionization model. Other mechanisms that could produce the anomalous OVII triplet, including a recombining plasma and charge exchange X-ray emission, are discussed., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, to appear in RAA

We present an overview of a new integral field spectroscopic survey called MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory), one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) that began on 2014 July 1. MaNGA will investigate the internal kinematic structure and composition of gas and stars in an unprecedented sample of 10,000 nearby galaxies. We summarize essential characteristics of the instrument and survey design in the context of MaNGA's key science goals and present prototype observations to demonstrate MaNGA's scientific potential. MaNGA employs dithered observations with 17 fiber-bundle integral field units that vary in diameter from 12" (19 fibers) to 32" (127 fibers). Two dual-channel spectrographs provide simultaneous wavelength coverage over 3600-10300 A at R~2000. With a typical integration time of 3 hr, MaNGA reaches a target r-band signal-to-noise ratio of 4-8 (per A, per 2" fiber) at 23 AB mag per sq. arcsec, which is typical for the outskirts of MaNGA galaxies. Targets are selected with stellar mass greater than 1e9 Msun using SDSS-I redshifts and i-band luminosity to achieve uniform radial coverage in terms of the effective radius, an approximately flat distribution in stellar mass, and a sample spanning a wide range of environments. Analysis of our prototype observations demonstrates MaNGA's ability to probe gas ionization, shed light on recent star formation and quenching, enable dynamical modeling, decompose constituent components, and map the composition of stellar populations. MaNGA's spatially resolved spectra will enable an unprecedented study of the astrophysics of nearby galaxies in the coming 6 yr., 26 pages, to be published in ApJ, instrumentation description presented in Drory et al

Measurement of the local dark matter density plays an important role in both Galactic dynamics and dark matter direct detection experiments. However, the estimated values from previous works are far from agreeing with each other. In this work, we provide a well-defined observed sample with 1427 G \& K type main-sequence stars from the LAMOST spectroscopic survey, taking into account selection effects, volume completeness, and the stellar populations. We apply a vertical Jeans equation method containing a single exponential stellar disk, a razor thin gas disk, and a constant dark matter density distribution to the sample, and obtain a total surface mass density of $\rm {78.7 ^{+3.9}_{-4.7}\ M_{\odot}\ pc^{-2}}$ up to 1 kpc and a local dark matter density of $0.0159^{+0.0047}_{-0.0057}\,\rm M_{\odot}\,\rm pc^{-3}$. We find that the sampling density (i.e. number of stars per unit volume) of the spectroscopic data contributes to about two-thirds of the uncertainty in the estimated values. We discuss the effect of the tilt term in the Jeans equation and find it has little impact on our measurement. Other issues, such as a non-equilibrium component due to perturbations and contamination by the thick disk population, are also discussed., 11 pages, 10 figures

We assess the effectiveness of the Jeans-Anisotropic-MGE (JAM) technique with a state-of-the-art cosmological hydrodynamic simulation, the Illustris project. We perform JAM modelling on 1413 simulated galaxies with stellar mass M^* > 10^{10}M_{sun}, and construct an axisymmetric dynamical model for each galaxy. Combined with a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation, we recover the projected root-mean-square velocity (V_rms) field of the stellar component, and investigate constraints on the stellar mass-to-light ratio, M^*/L, and the fraction of dark matter f_{DM} within 2.5 effective radii (R_e). We find that the enclosed total mass within 2.5 R_e is well constrained to within 10%. However, there is a degeneracy between the dark matter and stellar components with correspondingly larger individual errors. The 1 sigma scatter in the recovered M^*/L is 30-40% of the true value. The accuracy of the recovery of M^*/L depends on the triaxial shape of a galaxy. There is no significant bias for oblate galaxies, while for prolate galaxies the JAM-recovered stellar mass is on average 18% higher than the input values. We also find that higher image resolutions alleviate the dark matter and stellar mass degeneracy and yield systematically better parameter recovery., 14 pages, 12 figures

We explore the kinematics (both the radial velocity and the proper motion) of the vertical X-shaped feature in the Milky Way with an N-body bar/bulge model. From the solar perspective, the distance distribution of particles is double-peaked in fields passing through the X-shape. The separation and amplitude ratio between the two peaks qualitatively match the observed trends towards the Galactic bulge. We confirm clear signatures of cylindrical rotation in the pattern of mean radial velocity across the bar/bulge region. We also find possible imprints of coherent orbital motion inside the bar structure in the radial velocity distribution along l=0 degree, where the near and far sides of the bar/bulge show excesses of approaching and receding particles. The coherent orbital motion is also reflected in the slight displacement of the zero-velocity-line in the mean radial velocity, and the displacement of the maximum/minimum in the mean longitudinal proper motion across the bulge region. We find some degree of anisotropy in the stellar velocity within the X-shape, but the underlying orbital family of the X-shape cannot be clearly distinguished. Two potential applications of the X-shape in previous literature are tested, i.e., bulge rotation and Galactic center measurements. We find that the proper motion difference between the two sides of the X-shape can be used to estimate the mean azimuthal streaming motion of the bulge, but not the pattern speed of the bar. We also demonstrate that the Galactic center can be located with the X-shape, but the accuracy depends on the fitting scheme, the number of fields, and their latitudinal coverage., Comment: Minor changes to match the ApJ accepted version; 17 pages; emulateapj format. The electronic tables of our model result are available upon request

Using a set of high-resolution N-body/SPH cosmological simulations with identical initial conditions but run with different numerical setups, we investigate the influence of baryonic matter on the mass distribution of dark halos when radiative cooling is NOT included. We compare the concentration parameters of about 400 massive halos with virial mass from $10^{13}$ \Msun to $7.1 \times 10^{14}$ \Msun. We find that the concentration parameters for the total mass and dark matter distributions in non radiative simulations are on average larger by ~3% and 10% than those in a pure dark matter simulation. Our results indicate that the total mass density profile is little affected by a hot gas component in the simulations. After carefully excluding the effects of resolutions and spurious two-body heating between dark matter and gas particles, we conclude that the increase of the dark matter concentration parameters is due to interactions between baryons and dark matter. We demonstrate this with the aid of idealized simulations of two-body mergers. The results of individual halos simulated with different mass resolutions show that the gas profiles of densities, temperature and entropy are subjects of mass resolution of SPH particles. In particular, we find that in the inner parts of halos, as the SPH resolution increases the gas density becomes higher but both the entropy and temperature decrease., 8 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, ApJ in press (v652n1); updated to match with the being published version

We detect a Neptune mass-ratio (q~8e-5) planetary companion to the lens star in the extremely high-magnification (A~800) microlensing event OGLE-2005-BLG-169. If the parent is a main-sequence star, it has mass M~0.5 M_sun implying a planet mass of ~13 M_earth and projected separation of ~2.7 AU. When intensely monitored over their peak, high-magnification events similar to OGLE-2005-BLG-169 have nearly complete sensitivity to Neptune mass-ratio planets with projected separations of 0.6 to 1.6 Einstein radii, corresponding to 1.6--4.3 AU in the present case. Only two other such events were monitored well enough to detect Neptunes, and so this detection by itself suggests that Neptune mass-ratio planets are common. Moreover, another Neptune was recently discovered at a similar distance from its parent star in a low-magnification event, which are more common but are individually much less sensitive to planets. Combining the two detections yields 90% upper and lower frequency limits f=0.37^{+0.30}_{-0.21} over just 0.4 decades of planet-star separation. In particular, f>16% at 90% confidence. The parent star hosts no Jupiter-mass companions with projected separations within a factor 5 of that of the detected planet. The lens-source relative proper motion is ��~7--10 mas/yr, implying that if the lens is sufficiently bright, I, Submitted to ApJ Letters, 9 text pages + 4 figures + 1 table

The Exoplanet Euclid Legacy Survey (ExELS) proposes to determine the frequency of cold exoplanets down to Earth mass from host separations of ~1 AU out to the free-floating regime by detecting microlensing events in Galactic Bulge. We show that ExELS can also detect large numbers of hot, transiting exoplanets in the same population. The combined microlensing+transit survey would allow the first self-consistent estimate of the relative frequencies of hot and cold sub-stellar companions, reducing biases in comparing "near-field" radial velocity and transiting exoplanets with "far-field" microlensing exoplanets. The age of the Bulge and its spread in metallicity further allows ExELS to better constrain both the variation of companion frequency with metallicity and statistically explore the strength of star-planet tides. We conservatively estimate that ExELS will detect ~4100 sub-stellar objects, with sensitivity typically reaching down to Neptune-mass planets. Of these, ~600 will be detectable in both Euclid's VIS (optical) channel and NISP H-band imager, with ~90% of detections being hot Jupiters. Likely scenarios predict a range of 2900-7000 for VIS and 400-1600 for H-band. Twice as many can be expected in VIS if the cadence can be increased to match the 20-minute H-band cadence. The separation of planets from brown dwarfs via Doppler boosting or ellipsoidal variability will be possible in a handful of cases. Radial velocity confirmation should be possible in some cases, using 30-metre-class telescopes. We expect secondary eclipses, and reflection and emission from planets to be detectable in up to ~100 systems in both VIS and NISP-H. Transits of ~500 planetary-radius companions will be characterised with two-colour photometry and ~40 with four-colour photometry (VIS,YJH), and the albedo of (and emission from) a large sample of hot Jupiters in the H-band can be explored statistically., 18 pages, 16 figures, accepted MNRAS

Galactic winds and mass outflows are observed both in nearby starburst galaxies and in high-redshift star-forming galaxies. In this paper we develop a simple analytic model to understand the observed superwind phenomenon. Our model is built upon the model of McKee & Ostriker (1977) for the interstellar medium. It allows one to predict how properties of a superwind, such as wind velocity and mass outflow rate, are related to properties of its star-forming host galaxy, such as size, gas density and star formation rate. The model predicts a threshold of star formation rate density for the generation of observable galactic winds. Galaxies with more concentrated star formation produce superwinds with higher velocities. The predicted mass outflow rates are comparable to (or slightly larger than) the corresponding star formation rates. We apply our model to both local starburst galaxies and high-redshift Lyman break galaxies, and find its predictions to be in good agreement with current observations. Our model is simple, and so can be easily incorporated into numerical simulations and semi-analytical models of galaxy formation.